The general disregard for traffic laws is the result of a traffic system that greatly favors the car over the bike and offers little towards bikers when not on a trail or decent bike lane.
Bikers in Minneapolis are put into a crappy situation when not on those trails or bike lanes. If we bike on major streets like Lake Street, Hennepin Avenue, Lyndale Avenue, Penn Avenue, etc., then we piss off drivers because they can't easily get around us...or at least they perceive it that way. If we bike on the neighborhood streets, then we're stuck hitting stop signs every other block. That's the result of the "Basket Weave" approach to traffic engineering. The Basket Weave makes side streets unattractive for drivers looking to cut through a neighborhood in a timely fashion. This pushes them to the arterials instead. But the arterials have parking, buses, high volumes of cars who dislike bikers, and higher speeds. The lanes may or may not be narrower since they are cramming as many users into a fixed space.
The result is that you have bikers who bike everyone and anywhere. You have bikers on the main drags biking a safe distance away from the parked cars, which means they may be pissing off drivers. Some will stop at the red lights, some won't. Those in the neighborhoods are generally yielding at stop signs, but some surely are cutting off drivers. It's not a pretty situation.
What could be done to improve the situation?
- Create bike-focused streets that use clearly marked bike lanes. These streets should have infrequent stop signs and traffic lights. To reduce the chances that cars will use the street as a quick way to get from A to B (which isn't good for bikers or residents), these streets should have a speed limit of no greater than 25 mph. At the corners, curb extensions (bump outs) should go out as far as the bike lane. There should be lots of paint on the street to mark the bike lanes and to mark crosswalks. Speed humps (larger than bumps) should be put just before the crosswalks.
- Consideration should be given, where there's enough room and roads are being rebuilt, that a bike lane be placed between the sidewalk and the parking lane on major streets. This would require a curb between the bike lane and the parking lane, as to prevent drivers from parking their cars in the bike lane. There are a number of benefits of this, such as decreasing the risk to the biker to traffic and cars pulling out. The problems are that car doors could be an issue and that parking would need to be removed near intersections to prevent drivers who are turning from not seeing a biker who's covered up by a parked car.
- Retime lights along some streets to better reflect biking times than driving times. It's possible in some instances to have it timed both for bikers and cars. I recall several years ago that if you went 32 mph on Lyndale Avenue S from the Minnehaha Creek until at least 33rd Street, that you would hit all the lights perfectly. Someone else told me you could also do that at 39 mph. I somehow doubt it.
- Change the laws. I'd support making stop signs yields for bikers, with the right of way going to the driver if already at the stop sign. I'm not fully sure about the proposal that's being floated around that stop lights become yields to bikers IF there's no one approaching and that the biker makes a full stop at the light. It seems like it could be a disaster waiting to happen...but I need to do more research first.
There are a lot more things that could be done, but I think the first bullet is my main priority on bike policy improvements in the City of Minneapolis. Give us a better bike option and we'll use it. I don't know a single biker who wouldn't embrace the idea of having a street that's designed so that biking is convenient, fast, and less stressful.
Ideas?
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